It occurred to me today that to the best of my knowledge I am the only member of my group at work with both a child and a spouse who works full time. This realization occurred shortly after my boss asked us all to be in at 8AM tomorrow, meaning I would have to leave home nearly two hours earlier that usual. (I'm sure he would have given us more notice if he'd had any himself.) This means I need to saddle Warren with a probably cranky baby two hours earlier than usual. Neither Warren nor Margaret is a morning person.

If your wondering why I don't just ask Jomkwan to start three hours early, it's because there's this federal regulation about her not working more than ten hours in a day. Sure, in theory if I get into work I should get to leave early, but I would be foolish to count on it, especially considering our current workload.

I take it that getting Warren to take her at the end of the shift instead of the beginning is not possible? Does he have a job with defined hours now? (It's been a long time since I heard what he is doing professionally these days.)

These kinds of last-minute demands are why I left my old law firm. I occasionally still have the late night, but it's less than once a month, instead of every week, and I have a lot of flexibility to plan when I'm going to be working.

My flexibility is limited by the commute. There are some people who work the early shift, but if I got in at 7 for just the one day - which is kind of what it would take - I'd be completely nonproductive for most of the day. Me being half asleep while tending to Margaret is better than me being half asleep at work.

Unfortunately this contract is likely drawing to an end. I'm being recruited for a consulting job with an interesting company by a former boss that I really like, but I'm worried about exactly that kind of issue ... plus the work doesn't seem quite as fun as the crystal ball stuff.